One would have thought the CES unveiling of more TVs that you could shake a stick at wasn’t enough for Sony, but apparently it had to wait just a little while longer to announce a portable addition to the Bravia family, in the form of the B4000-series. Targeted at customers who aren’t interested in a mind-numbingly big TV, these sets can reputedly be moved easily around the house and though I wasn’t aware such a market even existed, one must assume Sony has done its homework.
All sets are available in silver and mocha (brownish) and while the latter may be the finest form of coffee known to man, brown is something of an acquired taste for consumer electronics kit. Specs wise the B4050 packs a 720p-friendly 1,366 x 768 panel, a 700:1 contrast ratio (6000:1 Dynamic) and comes in 20, 23 and 26 inch sizes. For connectivity there is a single HDMI, component and composite jacks alongside dual SCART and a D-Sub input. Video processing is handled by Sony’s Bravia Engine and although newer versions are available on newer TVs it should prove more than sufficient for the target market.
There’s also an integrated Freeview Tuner, with an expansion card slot for support for subscription services. Differentiating between the 23in and 20in models is the power consumption and the speaker power, with dual 5W drivers in the former and dual 3W in the latter. All models are already on Sony’s website and though pricing is not available yet, we’d expect them to fall in the £500 like other TV sets of this ilk.
